Settlers confident Israel will lurch rightwards in election

HEBRON, West Bank, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Entrenched in whatthey view as their Biblical heartland, the hardline Jewishsettlers of Hebron look forward with delight to next week'sIsraeli election.

Opinion polls forecast Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,already at odds with the world over Jewish settlement in theoccupied West Bank, will easily win a third term in office, withcoalition partners who could push him further to the right.

The pro-settler Bayit Yehudi, a natural ally of Netanyahu'sright-wing Likud party, is forecast to be the third largestfaction in parliament. Two Bayit Yehudi candidates - Hebronsettlers - have a real chance of winning legislative seats.

"The feeling is good," said Hebron settler Anat Cohen.

"It is clear that the people of Israel want a nationalgovernment, a Jewish government that wants the land of Israelwith Judea and Samaria," she said, using the Biblical name forthe West Bank.

Hebron, divided by a 1997 interim peace deal, is home to200,000 Palestinians and 800 Jews, who live in a closely-guardedenclave and are among the most ideologically driven of the500,000 settlers on land Palestinians want for a state.

Settlement projects on land Israel captured in the 1967Arab-Israeli War are considered illegal by most world powers,which frequently criticise them as an obstacle to peace.

Settler Haim Bleicher, 30, said Israelis no longer believethere is a chance for peace with the Palestinians.

"There is a sobering-up from the illusion of peaceagreements and there is more faith among the people, who believemore and are getting closer to the Torah, to the Bible," saidBleicher, who has lived in Hebron all his life.

"This change finds its expression in politics too," he saidas the Muslim call to prayer carried over the valley from anearby mosque.

REDEMPTION

Few Israelis doubt that Netanyahu will win the Jan. 22election. Polls show Likud, merged with former Foreign MinisterAvigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu, is set to be the biggestparty with about 34 of parliament's 120 seats.

That should be enough for Netanyahu to put together aright-wing coalition bloc to govern the country.

He has already announced settlement expansion plans thatinclude, for the first time, construction in the E1 area nearJerusalem that could split the West Bank and further dimprospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinianconflict.

"The people of Israel are marching with a clear, definitemajority toward a wide land, a right-wing state with a Jewish,national, character and we believe that this is the beginning of the complete redemption," Cohen said. "This gives us resolve infacing our enemies."

Just two months ago, pro-settler hardliners swept theprimaries in an internal Likud vote that tossed out some ofNetanyahu's closest allies, seen by some party members aslagging in their support of settlements.

One Likud candidate likely to win a Knesset seat is MosheFeiglin, a far-right settler who has twice challenged Netanyahufor leadership of the party and is now number 23 on its list ofparliamentary candidates.

Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem this month, Feiglinadvocated Israeli annexation of the West Bank and provision offinancial inducements to encourage Palestinians to leave.

"Every Arab family in Judea and Samaria can be given anincentive of half a million dollars to encourage theiremigration to a place where they will find a better future,"Feiglin said, adding that it was the only "real solution".

ANNEXATION

The conference was organised by settler leaders and attendedby hundreds. Three other Likud lawmakers, including one Likudminister, called there for application of Israeli sovereigntyover the West Bank, home to 2.5 million Palestinians whoexercise limited self-rule in some of the territory.

Such a plan is advocated by Naftali Bennett, head of BayitYehudi and a natural ally of Netanyahu. He calls for theeventual annexation of more than half of the West Bank and saysa Palestinian state would be "suicide" for Israel.

Since winning his party's leadership in November, Bennetthas shot to campaign stardom. The high-tech millionaire hasrevamped Bayit Yehudi with fresh, new faces calling for peaceand unity within Israel's ethnically-fraught society.

But Israeli critics of Bennett says his party list includessome very hawkish candidates. Bennett cites security concernsfor annexation of the West Bank. Others in his party look to theJewish scriptures.

"This land was given to us by God," Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan,number four on the Bayit Yehudi roster, said at the settlerconference in Jerusalem. "We have no right to forgo one grain ofthis land."

Many Hebron settlers see themselves as pioneers, carryingthe torch for Jews who inhabited the city on and off forcenturies, at times banished by conquerors. The community wasdriven out by the killing of 67 Jews by Arabs in 1929.